


The Healing Heart

by sunshine_temptress



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Military, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_temptress/pseuds/sunshine_temptress
Summary: A little teaser for you all. I'm narcissistic...but also incredibly insecure and unsure of myself. Let me know if you'd like me to continue!
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	The Healing Heart

Harry knew what marrying into this certain kind of life meant, he knew there would always be “what if’s” and risks and lonely nights-lonely months. He just never imagined that it would happen to him. When he vowed “til death do us part” he never imagined death would be so close. Three years into his marriage with his first and only love, Harry lost his husband. The man he loved since he was fifteen years old, gone in an instant. At least...he hoped it was quick.

Harry started his day out like any other, missing Noah and doing his best to carry on while his better half was across the world fighting a never ending war. He finished his classes at the community college and headed over to their close friend’s Rosa and Daniel’s home for dinner. Daniel was supposed to have also been deployed but Rosa had just given birth to their first child, so he was allowed to come back a month earlier than the rest of his company. Just one more month and Noah would be back in his arms, in their bed. Little did he know. 

Daniel had been acting strange that evening. He wouldn’t look Harry in the eyes for more than a few seconds when he tried to engage in conversation. Harry got annoyed and thought to himself why would he have insisted that Harry come over for dinner if he clearly was in no mood for socializing? Just after dinner had finished, Rosa took their newborn, Delilah, into the living room to feed her and Harry followed. Daniel stayed in the kitchen to do the dishes. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Harry got up to get it but Daniel beat him to it, motioning for Harry to stay seated. Daniel opened the door and said nothing, just held the door open wider for two men in uniform to enter the home.

Rosa caught on quicker than Harry. He stared at the chaplain and officer as they slowly approached him, both wide eyed with sorrowful looks on their faces. Rosa started crying, repeating the words “oh no...Danny no...”

“Sir, will you please state your full name?” One man had asked Harry.

“Harry Puckerman,” Harry told him, mind spinning, gut clenching and heart beating entirely out of rhythm.

“Harry Puckerman,” the man began and Harry immediately started to cry. Tears continuously streamed down his face as the man continued his script, “the commandant of the United States Marine Corps has entrusted me, John Eric, to express his deep regret that your husband, Noah Puckerman, was killed in action in Afghanistan, on the twenty-second of July, 2009. The commandant extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.” The man said in a stoic tone. He placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder as he slumped forwards, head falling in his hands.

Rosa placed baby Delilah back in her bassinet and pulled a sobbing Harry to her chest as he repeatedly wept in disbelief that his husband was gone.

The trip to Dover to meet his husband’s deceased body as it was brought over back to the states was painful and unfair. His husband’s body, or what remained of him, stuffed into an ornate wooden casket traveled across the world to be brought home, only to be buried in the ground days later.

The funeral...everything was one giant painful blur that Harry refuses to try to relive to clarify the memories. He still has not accepted the death of Noah after six months now. He refused to move on. He quit school, and unfortunately couldn’t quit his job due to having a lease to uphold. He picked up shifts as often as he could, not wanting to spend more time alone in their home than necessary. 

Life took a turn for the worst upon the news of Noah’s death and it changed Harry. He wanted nothing to do with the military. He cut ties and distanced himself from Rosa and Daniel, since there were photos and countless memories attached to them and their hone. At first it hurt and he wanted to pick up the phone and apologize, but he knew he had to do it for himself.

He broke the lease on the home he once shared with Noah as early as he could, and moved into a small one-bedroom apartment three towns over, close to the beach, where he likes to go at night and early in the mornings and just mindlessly stare at the seemingly endless ocean horizon.

Six months have passed and he still feels an aching emptiness, but he’s trying to get better. He knows deep down that Noah would never want for him to hang onto something intangible, something unreachable. Nothing was going to bring him back, but that didn’t mean Harry wasn’t allowed to grieve in his own way. 

His mother kept bugging him to move home but he refuses. Home is where they grew up together. They had gone to school together since they were five years old, everything back home would just bring back memories and remind Harry that those memories are all he has left of Noah. So, he stays in the small fishing town of Chadwick, North Carolina, and tries his best to make a life there.

**Author's Note:**

> A little teaser for you all. I'm narcissistic...but also incredibly insecure and unsure of myself. Let me know if you'd like me to continue!


End file.
